Frustrated Chuck Todd Blames GOP 'Sabotage' for ObamaCare Failure

Appearing on Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd blamed Republicans for ObamaCare beginning to collapse under its own weight: "...you could argue that there are some Republicans that are trying to sabotage the law,
that they're hoping to not get it off the ground and then they can
suddenly make the case, 'See, we've got to get rid of it.' And they've
got some state governors that are openly trying to sabotage it." [Listen to the audio]

Todd went on to attack Republican senators who protested an effort by
the Obama administration to use the NFL to promote ObamaCare: "Look at
what [Mitch] McConnell and [John] Cornyn did to the sports leagues? That
was a shakedown. That was a threatening letter by the two leaders of
the Senate Republicans, who essentially said, 'If you participate in
this, if you help them try to enact this law of the land, be careful,
there's going to be political repercussions.'"

Moments later, left-wing Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne
eagerly agreed with Todd's assessment: "Chuck is right about – the NFL
thing was really unseemly and I don't think they needed to go there."

Apparently the government using a major corporation to sell a political agenda was not equally "unseemly" to Todd or Dionne.

Todd began his rant by sympathetically declaring that the White House
"thought that Republicans after the election would basically concede
this is going to be the law of the land and then they would be in the
mode of, 'Okay, we'll try and fix it'....But they're not getting
[that]."

In response to Todd's claim of sabotage, New York Times
columnist David Brooks shot back: "The Republicans would say, 'We're
sabotaging a Rube Goldberg device that wouldn't work any way.' I mean,
this is an incredibly complex law, so it's not – surely there is
Republican opposition, but this is an incredibly complex law doing a lot
of things probably it shouldn't do."

Turning to Republican Congressman Raul Labrador near the end of the
panel discussion, moderator David Gregory parroted White House spin on
delaying the employer health insurance mandate: "Why shouldn't this be
seen a different way? Which is the Obama administration making a real
and credible concession to the business community to make sure that this
is implemented in a thorough and effective way."

Labrador replied: "Well, that's what the Obama administration wants you
to believe.... But the question is, what part of ObamaCare actually
works? Because if you look at – they've already had to concede on other
points that ObamaCare is not working....There's nothing about this law
that is working in the United States..."

Here is a full transcript of the July 7 panel discussion:

11:01AM ET

DAVID GREGORY: We are back with our political roundtable joining me.
Columnist for The New York Times, David Brooks, columnist – Brooks,
rather – columnist for the Washington Post, E.J. Dionne – Brooks and
Dionne. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, and still here, of
course, Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd.

So I want to switch gears from foreign policy to domestic policy, and a
lot of fights back here at home including, David Brooks, health care.
You know, I talked to a business leader about a week ago. He said he
still couldn't understand why the administration would pass a health
care law and execute on a health care law, the impact of which was so
uncertain. He said, "We would never do that in business." And here was
another example of that. Explain what's happened and the impact of it.

DAVID BROOKS: Yeah, well, what they're trying to do is regulate 17% of
the U.S. economy, roughly the size of the economy of France. That's
bound to be a problem. That's bound to go through messy things. And the
employer mandate which they delayed is the smallest foothill of the
problems. The biggest problems are things like the exchanges, which is
where people are going to buy insurance. Whether young people, who
really don't have much of an incentive to get into the system, are gonna
get in the system. Those are going to be big and messy. And whether you
support it or oppose it, you've just got to be ready for that
messiness.

The crucial thing for us is, how does that messiness interact with the
political system? We could be at moment of peak messiness just as the
midterm elections come around. And so the administration is concerned
about that intersection and one of the things they did with this
employer mandate is pushed it back until after those midterm elections.
But I personally think that if we could just have the messiness, we'd
work it through, somehow they'd fix it. But when the political system
comes into the middle, that could really throw a wrench into things.

GREGORY: Well, and the political system, E.J., is House Republicans
thinking back to the glory days of 2010 when Republicans took the House
based on health care, and Eric Cantor tweeting this week, "Why does
President Obama think businesses deserve a delay from the mandates in
ObamaCare but you don't? It's time for a #permanentdelay."

E.J. DIONNE: Well, you know, one of the things I'd tell that
businessman is a lot of people in business have made a lot of money by
taking chances. It's not as if trying to do something new is easy and
trying to do something new is often the right thing to do. And I think
in the case of this health care law, David's right, there is a clash
with the political system, because in the past, in many cases, we've
always passed complicated laws that Congress went back and they could
fix it. And the Republicans in this case say, "We're never going to fix
this. We're going to let it run forward." We fixed Social Security over
and over again after it passed to make it better.

I think the task – this has been a bad week for Obama because the last
thing they wanted to do is say these mandate – this mandate won't work
as well this way and we're gonna want to re-look it – they don't like
that. But the big tasks are, do these exchanges, these marketplaces
where people can find insurance, work? Do they sign up young people? And
will there be states out there that actually make this thing work? So
that the Obama people and supporters of reform can say, "Look, this can
work if states put their shoulder to the wheel with the feds."

GREGORY: Eugene Robinson, I don't understand exactly how the exchanges
are going to work, I don't understand all the ins and outs of the
employer mandate and how that works. But anybody who gets a paycheck in
this country understands one thing, that there's a new line item and it
says, "Medicare surtax." So the tax part's working. You're paying more
in taxes for ObamaCare. That part's working. It makes a lot of people
mad.

EUGENE ROBINSON: Well, yeah, look, but let's back up for a second.
This fight really is wholly political. I mean ObamaCare is not going to
be repealed. Right? Because they're not going to have majorities in
either House to repeal it, and in fact, President Obama would never sign
that. So it's going to be messy. It's going to be politically
contentious. But in the end it's going to work out the way it works out.
And, you know, if it's a big bust, then there's political problems down
the road. But it's going to happen.

ANDREA MITCHELL: But for it to work, the exchanges have to take place,
and state after state now, run by Republican governors and Republican
legislatures, are trying to roll back or have rolled back or saying they
won't participate. And you have to have a certain coherent whole for
this to work economically. You can't nibble away at it. And in fact,
these are big bites out of it. I think also in the reporting, losing
that mandate is such a concession, it may not be the biggest piece of
it, but it's a concession to the critics that something needs to be
delayed, that something's not working. I think that's a politically
damaging moment.

CHUCK TODD: Well, they'll admit that the business mandate was poorly
written, that they normally would have sought a legislative fix, what
E.J. was talking about, but they can't get a legislative fix out of the
House. But the bigger issue here, I think, for the administration is
that they don't seem – they've got to build all this, they know that –
they thought that Republicans after the election would basically concede
this is going to be the law of the land and then they would be in the
mode of, "Okay, we'll try and fix it. We'll try to get as much as we can
to change it in ways that we think business wants it changed or to
change it in ways we think will make it a little less bureaucratic and
things like that."

But they're not getting – there's – you could argue that there are
some Republicans that are trying to sabotage the law, that they're
hoping to not get it off the ground and then they can suddenly make the
case, "See, we've got to get rid of it." And they've got some state
governors that are openly trying to sabotage it. You've got – look at
what McConnell and Cornyn did to the sports leagues? That was a
shakedown. That was a threatening letter by the two leaders of the
Senate Republicans, who essentially said...

GREGORY: When the NFL was going to come out and, yeah.

TODD: ..."If you participate in this, if you help them try to enact
this law of the land, be careful, there's going to be political
repercussions."

BROOKS: They would say – the Republicans would say, "We're sabotaging a
Rube Goldberg device that wouldn't work any way." I mean, this is an
incredibly complex law, so it's not – surely there is Republican
opposition, but this is an incredibly complex law doing a lot of things
probably it shouldn't do. We probably shouldn't have employer insurance
at all.

DIONNE: But Chuck is right about – the NFL thing was really unseemly
and I don't think they needed to go there. But what you do have, if the
states don't participate, is that the federal government steps in and
creates those marketplaces. And that's also going to be an interesting
challenge. Can the feds show that a – maybe a national law would have
been better in the first place, all these concessions to states' rights
were an effort to get it passed.

GREGORY: Let me bring in Congressman Raul Labrador of Idaho, a
conservative in the House, Tea-Party-supported. Congressman, welcome
back. And let me have you weigh in on this particular issue. Why
shouldn't this be seen a different way? Which is the Obama
administration making a real and credible concession to the business
community to make sure that this is implemented in a thorough and
effective way.

RAUL LABRADOR [REP. R-ID]: Well, that's what the Obama administration
wants you to believe. I think they want you to think that they're
listening to the business owners. And I think you can give them a little
bit of credit for that. But the question is, what part of ObamaCare
actually works? Because if you look at – they've already had to concede
on other points that ObamaCare is not working. Now they have to do it on
the employer mandate. And pretty soon I think they're going to have to
have some questions about the individual mandate.

There's nothing about this law that is working in the United States,
all businesses are concerned. And it was interesting to listen to
Senator Menendez say that this portion of the law was only going to
affect about 1% of the businesses. Why is it that Democrats and this
administration thought that it was necessary for them to create a law
that was actually going to affect 1% of the businesses, when most
businesses with 50 people and plus were actually providing insurance to
their employees?

(...)

-- Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow Kyle Drennen on Twitter.

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